“”Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge"

Anti-intellectualism is an attitude that minimizes the value of intelligence, knowledge, and curiosity. Anti-intellectuals believe that science, expertise and "book knowledge" are less valuable than "street smarts" and "common sense." They also believe that they don't have to read anything about a field of knowledge before dismissing it with their own "theories".

One may notice that most anti-intellectuals have little problem with academics and experts who side with them. In fact, they often champion them and their credentials. You can tell who among your friends is anti-intellectual: if they list "University of Life"[2] or "School of Hard Knocks" in their Facebook pages and repost all sorts of stupid political memes.

Unreflective instrumentalism, in which the value of learning is reduced to immediate material gain in the form of higher profits and higher salaries. In higher education this results in "suppression of ethics discussions, pressure for vocationalism in the humanities and social sciences, and advocacy of less autonomy in education."

Disagreeing with an expert in one topic when talking about another (make sure they are an expert in the right area).

Disagreeing with an expert or experts while taking the research in the field seriously (that includes being able to understand the relevant parts). That includes disagreeing with the majority opinion of experts on a subject, so long as you have evidence and good reasons to back up your position.

Academics, a subcategory of experts, are people who have studied a particular field at university level for many years, becoming one of a small collection of people who are knowledgeable about one area.

Academics tend to write at length about topics they are interested in (and sometimes even contribute to topics no one cares about). One difference between academics and professors is that academics do not necessarily teach and are not necessarily associated with a particular university.

A professor is an expert who isn't listened to when it really matters, largely because nobody outside their specialty has a clue what they're talking about. As salaried thinkers, they conduct research, teach classes, write volumes of scientific articles and often publish entire books. Other stereotypical characteristics of professors include: confusing and/or ignoring their graduate students, reliving the glory days of the 60s after a single sniff of wine and being closet Wikipedia editors. They are among the most educated 1% of the population and widen society's horizons. Yet, barely half are among the top 15% of earners (social injustice you say... they'd agree). They commonly enjoy a lot of work autonomy, sabbaticals and a nine-month work year (this supposedly compensates for the "low" salaries). They do a lot of associating and assisting in the course of their work (see below).

"Living in an ivory tower" is an expression used to indicate that someone is out of touch with common experience, usually due to spending much of their life in academia.[4]

The term is also used contemptuously for any exclusive or esoteric field or event (Mensa meetings, art shows, physics lectures, etc.), particularly by anti-intellectuals, and is associated with various stereotypes about academics and intellectuals lacking common sense and basic life skills.

Academics are often accused of (and sometimes guilty of) living in an "ivory tower," in which they interact with a simplified and therefore distorted model of reality as though it were the real world itself (i.e., they "eat the menu," or "mistake the map for the territory") and ignore the complexities and contradictions of the real world, or rest attempts to implement theory-based real-world measures on their assumed authority. This is very seldom an issue in the highly technical "crunchy" sciences, where an idea's validity is generally a relatively clear question and it typically must pass muster based on its applicability and predictive power, say the scientific method. However, this behaviour is more likely in the fuzzier sciences (psychology, religious studies, sociology), and potentially pervasive in politically or emotionally charged areas (e.g. in women's studies on the left end, or economics on the right end of the political spectrum) where the perspective of a highly-invested academic may readily be twisted informed by emotion, pet theory, or political agenda.

The origin of the phrase is in the Biblical Song of Solomon (7:4), but its original meaning is largely forgotten or overlooked. Since the early twentieth century the phrase has primarily been used to describe academia and privileged people or institutions which are perceived to be so caught up in their worlds of elitist isolation that they lose touch with the every day world.